These notes attempt to say something useful about
magical ritual. This is difficult, because ritual is invented, and
any
sequence of actions can be ritualised and used to symbolise anything;
but then something similar can be said about words and
language, and that doesn't prevent us from trying to communicate, so
I will make the attempt to say something useful about ritual, and try to
steer a path between the Scylla of anthropology and sweeping generalisations,
and the Charybdis of cultish
parochialism. My motivation for writing this is my belief that
while any behaviour can be ritualised, and it is impossible to
state "magical ritual consists of this" or "magical ritual consists
of that", some magical rituals are better than others.
This raises questions of what I mean by "goodness" or "badness", "effectiveness"
or "ineffectiveness" in the context of magical
work, and I intend to duck this with a pragmatic reply. A magical ritual
is "good" if it achieves its intention without undesired
side effects, and it is "bad" if the roof falls on your head.
Underlying this definition is another belief: that magical ritual
taps a raw and potentially dangerous (and certainly amoral) psychic
force which has to be channelled and directed; traditional
forms of magical ritual do that and are not so arbitrary as they appear
to be.
An outline of ceremonial magical ritual (in
the basic form in which it has been handed down in Europe over the centuries)
is
that the magician works within a circle and uses consecrated tools
and the magical names of various entities to evoke or invoke
Powers. It seems to work. Or at least it works for some
people some of the time. How *well* does it work? That's a
fair
question, and not an easy one to answer, as there is too much ego at
stake in admitting that one's rituals don't always work out.
My rituals don't always work - sometimes nothing appears to happen,
sometimes I get unexpected side effects. The same is true of those magicians
I know personally, and I suspect the same is true of most people.
Even at the mundane level, if you've ever tried to recreate a "magical
moment" in a relationship, you will know that it is hard to stand in the
same river twice - there is an elusive and wandering spark which all too
often just wanders.
In summary, I like to know why some rituals
work better than others, and why some, even when that elusive spark is
present, go sour and call up all the wrong things - these notes contain
some of my conclusions. As I have tried to lift the rug and look
underneath the surface, the approach is abstract in places; I prefer to
be practical rather than theoretical, but if magic is to be anything other
than a superstitious handing-down of mumbo-jumbo, we need a model of what
is happening, a causality of magic against which it is possible to make
value judgements about what is good and bad in ritual. Traditional models
of angels, spirits, gods and goddesses, ancestral spirits and so on are
useful up to a point, but these are not the end of the story, and in penetrating
beyond these "intermediaries" the magician is forced to confront the nature
of consciousness itself and become something of a mystic.
The idea that the physical universe is the
end product of a "process of consciousness" is virtually a first principle
of
Eastern esoteric philosophy, it is at the root of the Kabbalistic doctrine
of emanation and the sephiroth, and it has been adopted
by many twentieth century magicians as a useful complement to whatever
traditional model of magic they were weaned on - once one has accepted
that it is possible to create "thought-forms" and "artificial elementals"
and "telesmic images", it is a small step to admitting that the gods, goddesses,
angels, and spirits of traditonal magic may have no reality outside of
the consciousness which creates and sustains them. This is what I
believe personally on alternate days of the week. On the remaining
days I am happy to believe in the reality of gods, goddesses, archangels,
elementals, ancestral spirits etc. - in common with many magicians I sit
on the fence in an interesting way. There is a belief among some
magicians that while gods, goddesses etc may be the creations of consciousness,
on a par with money and the Bill of Rights, such things take on a life
of their own and can be treated as if they were real, so while I take the
view that magic is ultimately the manipulation of consciousness, you will
find me out there calling on the Powers with as much gusto as anyone else.

2. Magical Consciousness

The principle function of magical ritual is to
cause well-defined changes in consciousness. There are other (non-magical)
kinds of ritual and ceremony - social, superstitious, celebratory etc -
carried out for a variety of reasons, but magical ritual can be distinguished
by its emphasis on causing shifts in consciousness to states not normally
attainable, with a consequence of causing effects which would be considered
impossible or improbable by most people in this day and age.
The realisation that the content of magical
ritual is a means to an end, the end being the deliberate manipulation
of
consciousness, is an watershed in magical technique. Many people, particularly
the non-practicing general public, believe there is something inherently
magical about ritual, that it can be done, like cooking, from a recipe
book; that prayers, names of powers, fancy candles, crystals, five-pointed
stars and the like have an intrinsic power which works by itself, and it
is only necessary to be initiated into all the details and hey presto!
- you can do it. I believe this is (mostly) wrong. Symbols
do have magical power, but not in the crude sense implied above; magical
power comes from the conjunction of a symbol and a person who can bring
that symbol to life, by directing and limiting their consciousness through
the symbol, in the manner of icing through an icing gun. Magical
power comes from the person (or people), not from the superficial trappings
of ritual. The key to ritual is the manipulation and shifting of
consciousness, and without that shift it is empty posturing.
So let us concentrate on magical consciousness,
and how it differs from the state of mind in which we normally carry out
our
business in the world. Firstly, there isn't a sudden quantum jump into
an unusual state of mind called magical consciousness. All
consciousness is equally magical, and what we call magical depends
entirely on what we consider to be normal and take for granted. There is
a continuum of consciousness spreading away from the spot where we normally
hang our hat, and the potential for magic depends more on the appropriateness
of our state for what we are trying to achieve than it does on peculiar
trance states. When I want to boil an egg I don't spend three days
fasting and praying to God; I just boil an egg. One of the characteristics
of my "normal" state of consciousness is that I understand how to boil
an egg, but from many alternative states of consciousness it is a magical
act of the first order. So what I call magical consciousness differs
from normal consciousness only in so far as it is a state less appropriate
for boiling eggs, and more appropriate for doing other things.
Secondly, there isn't one simple flavour of
magical consciousness; the space of potential consciousness spreads out
along several different axes, like moving in a space with several different
dimensions, and that means the magician can enter a
large number of distinct states, all of which can be considered different
aspects of magical consciousness.
Lastly, it is normal to shift our consciousness
around in this space during our everyday lives, so there is nothing unusual
in shifting consciousness to another place. This makes magical
consciousness hard to define, because it isn't something so
extraordinary after all. Nevertheless, there is a difference
between walking across the road and walking around the world, and
there are differences between what I call normal and magical consciousness,
even though they are arbitrary markers in a
continuum. There is a difference in magnitude, and there is a
difference in the "magnitude of intent", that is, will. Magic
takes us beyond the normal; it disrupts cosy certainties; it explores
new territory. Like new technology, once it becomes part
of everyday life it stops being "magical" and becomes "normal".
We learn the "magic of normal living" at an early age and forget
the magic of it; normal living affects us in ways which the magician
recognises as magical, but so "normal" that it is
difficult to realise what is going on. From the point of view
of magical consciousness, "normal life" is seen to be a complex
magical balancing act, like a man who keeps a hundred plates spinning
on canes at the same time and is always on the point of
losing one. Magical consciousness is not the extraordinary state: normal
life is. The man on the stage is so busy spinning his
plates he can spend no time doing anything else.
A characteristic of magical consciousness
which distinguishes it from normal consciousness is that in most magical
work the
magician moves outside the "normally accessible" region of consciousness.
Most "normal people" will resist an attempt to
shift their consciousness outside the circle of normality, and if too
much pressure is applied they panic, throw- up, become ill,
have hysterics, call the police or a priest or a psychiatrist, or end
up permanently traumatised. Sometimes they experience a
blinding but one-sided illumination and become fanatics for a one-sided
point of view. Real, detectable shifts in consciousness
outside the "normal circle" are to be entered into warily, and the
determined ritualist treads a thin line between success, and
physical and psychical illness. A neophyte in Tibet swears that
he or she is prepared to risk madness, disease and death, and in my personal
experience this is not melodramatic - the risks are real enough.
It depends on temperament and constitution - some people wander all over
the planes of consciousness with impunity, some find it extremely stressful,
and some claim it never did them any harm (when they are clearly as cracked
as the Portland Vase). The grosser forms of magic are hard to do
because body and mind fight any attempt to move into those regions of consciousness
where it is possible to transcend the "normal" and create new kinds of
normality.
The switch into magical consciousness is often
accompanied by a feeling of "energy" or "power". Reality becomes a fluid,
and the will is like a wind blowing it this way and that. Far out.
There are several traditional methods for
reaching abnormal states of consciousness: dance, drumming, hallucinogenic
and
narcotic substances, fasting and other forms of privation, sex, meditation,
dreaming, and ritual, used singly and in combination.
These notes deal only with ritual. Magical ritual has evolved
organically out of the desire to reach normally inaccessible
regions of consciousness and still continue living sanely in the world
afterwards, and once that is understood, its profundity from
a psychological point of view can be appreciated.

3. Limitation

The concept of limitation is so important in the
way magical ritual has developed that it is worth taking a look at what
it
means before going on to look at the basics of ritual.
We are limited beings: our lives are limited
to some tens of years, our bodies are limited in their physical abilities,
and
compared to all the different kinds of life on this planet we are clearly
very specialised compared with the potential of what we
could be, if we had the choice of being anything we wanted. Even as
human beings we are limited, in that we are all quite distinct from one
another, and guard that individuality and uniqueness as an inalienable
right. We limit ourselves to a few skills because of the effort and
talent required to acquire them, and only in exceptional cases do we find
people who are expert in a large number of different skills - most people
are happy if they are acknowledged as being an expert in one thing, and
it is a fact that as the sum total of knowledge increases, so people (particularly
those with technical skills) are forced to become
more and more specialised.
This idea of limitation and specialisation
has found its way into magical ritual because of the magical (or mystical)
perception that, although all consciousness in the universe is One,
and that Oneness can be perceived directly, it has become
limited. There is a process of limitation in which the One (God,
if you like) becomes progressively structured and constrained
until it reaches the level of thee and me. The details of this
process (sometimes called "The Fall") lies well outside a set of
notes on ritual technique, and being theosophical, is the sort of thing
people like to have long-winded arguments about, so I am not going to say
much about it. What I *will* say is that magicians and mystics the
world over are relatively unanimous in insisting that the normal
everyday consciousness of most human beings is a severe *limitation* on
the potential of consciousness, and it is possible, through various disciplines,
to extend consciousness into new regions; this harks back to the "circle
of normality" I mentioned in the previous section. From a magical point
of view the personality, the ego, the continuing sense of individual "me-ness",
is a magical creation with highly specialised abilities, an artificial
elemental or thoughtform which consumes all our magical power in exchange
for the kind of limitation necessary to survive, and in order to work magic
it is necessary to divert energy away from this obsession with personal
identity and self-importance.
Now, consider the following problem: you have
been imprisoned inside a large inflated plastic bag. You have been
given a
sledghammer and a scalpel. Which tool will get you out faster?
The answer I am looking for is the scalpel: a way of getting out
of large, inflated, plastic bags is to apply as much force as possible
to as sharp a point as possible. Magicians agree on this
principle - the key to successful ritual work is a "single-pointed
will". A mystic may try to expand consciousness in all directions
simultaneously, to encompass more and more of the One, to embrace the One,
perhaps even to transcend the One, but this is hard, and most people aren't
up to it in practise. Rather than expand in all directions simultaneously,
it is much easier to *limit* an excursion of consciousness in one direction,
and the more precise and well-defined that limitation to a specific direction,
the easier it is to get out of the bag. Limitation of consciousness
is the trick we use to cope with the complexity of life in modern society,
and as long as we are forced to live under this yoke we can make a virtue
out of a necessity, and use our carefully cultivated ability to focus attention
on minutiae to burst out of the bag.
What limitation means in practise is that
magical ritual is designed to produce specific and highly *limited* changes
in
consciousness, and this is done by using a specific map of consciousness,
and there are symbolic correspondences within the
map which can be used in the construction of a ritual - I discuss this
later. The principle of limitation is a key to understanding
the structure of magical ritual, and a key to successful practice.

To summarise the last two sections, I would
say the characteristics of a "good" ritual are:

1. Entry into magical consciousness and
the release of "magical energy".

2. A limitation of consciousness to channel
that energy in the correct direction, with minimal "splatter".

Without the energy there is nothing to channel.
Without the limitation, energy splatters in all directions and takes the
path
of minimal psychic resistance to earth. A magical ritual is the
calculated shifting and limitation of consciousness.

4. Essential Steps

There is never going to be agreement about what
is essential in a ritual and what is not, any more than there will ever
be
agreement about what makes a good novel. That doesn't mean there
is nothing worth discussing. The steps I have enumerated below are
suggestions which were handed down to me, and a lot of insight (not mine)
has gone into them; they conform to a Western magical tradition which has
not changed in its essentials for thousands of years, and I hand them on
to you in the same spirit as I received them.
These are the steps:

1. Open the Circle
2. Open the Gates
3. Invocation to the Powers
4. Statement of Intention and Sacrifice
5. Main Ritual
6. Dismissal of Powers
7. Close the Gates
8. Close the Circle

4.1 Open the Circle
The Circle is the place where magical work
is carried out. It might literally be circle on the ground, or it
could be a
church, or a stone ring, or a temple, or it might be an imagined circle
inscribed in the aethyr, or it could be any spot hallowed
by tradition. In some cases the Circle is created specifically for
one piece of work and then closed, while in other cases (e.g. a
church) the building is consecrated and all the space within the building
is treated as if it is an open circle for long periods of
time. I don't want to deal too much in generalities, so I will
deal with the common case where a circle is created specifically
for one piece of work, for a period of time typically less than one
day.
The Circle is the first important magical
limit: it creates an area within which the magical work takes place.
The magician
tries to control everything which takes place within the Circle (limitation),
and so a circle half-a-mile across is impractical.
The Circle marks the boundary between the rest of the world (going
on its way as normal), and a magical space where things are most definitely
not going on as normal (otherwise there wouldn't be any point in carrying
out a ritual in the first place). There is a dislocation: the region
inside the circle is separated from the rest of space and is free to go
its own way. There are some types of magical work where it may not
be sensible to have a circle (e.g. working with the natural elements
in the world at large) but unless you are working with a Power already
present in the environment in its normal state, it is useful to work within
a circle.
The Circle may be a mark on the ground, or
something more intangible still; my own preference is an imagined line
of blue
fire drawn in the air. It is in the nature of consciousness that
anything taken as real and treated as real will eventually be
accepted as Real - and if you want to start a good argument, state
that money doesn't exist and isn't Real. From a ritual point of view
the Circle is a real boundary, and if its usefulness is to be maintained
it should be treated with the same respect as an
electrified fence. Pets, children and casual onlookers should
be kept out of it. Whatever procedures take place within the Circle
should only take place within the Circle and in no other place, and conversely,
your normal life should not intrude on the Circle unless it is part of
your intention that it should. Basically, if you don't want a circle, don't
have one, but if you do have one, decide what it means and stick to it.
There is a school of thought which believes a circle is a "container for
power", and
another which believes a circle "keeps out the nasties". I subscribe
to both and neither of these points of view. From a
symbolic point of view, the Circle marks a new "circle of normality",
a circle different from my usual "circle of
normality", making it possible to keep the two "regions of consciousness"
distinct and separate. The magician leaves
everyday life behind when the Circle is opened, and returns to it when
the Circle is closed, and for the duration adopts a
discipline of thought and deed which is specific to the type of magical
work being undertaken; this procedure is not so different
from that in many kinds of laboratory where people work with hazardous
materials. The circle is both a barrier and a
container. This is a kind of psychic sanitation, and in magic
"sanity" and "sanitary" have more in common than spelling.
Opening a Circle usually involves drawing
a circle in the air or on the ground, accompanied by an invocation to guardian
spirits, or the elemental powers of the four quarters, or the four
watchtowers, or the archangels, or whatever. The details aren't
so important as practicing it until you can do it in your sleep, and
you should carry it out with the same attitude as a soldier on
formal guard duty outside a public building. You are establishing
a perimeter under the watchful "eyes" of whatever guardians you have requested
to keep an eye on things, and a martial attitude and sense of discipline
creates the right psychological mood.

4.2 Opening the Gates
The Gates in question are the boundary between
normal and magical consciousness. Just as opening the Circle limits
the
ritual in space, so opening the Gates limits the ritual in time. Not
everyone opens the Gates as a separate activity; opening a
Circle can be considered a de-facto opening of Gates, but there are
good reasons for keeping the two activities separate.
Firstly, it is convenient to be able to open a Circle without going
into magical consciousness; despite what I said about not
bringing normal consciousness into the Circle, rules are made to be
broken, and there are times when something unpleasant and
unwanted intrudes on normal consciousness, and a Circle can be used
to keep it out - like pulling blankets over your head at
night. Secondly, opening the Gates as a separate activity means
they can be tailored to the specific type of magical consciousness you
are trying to enter. Thirdly, just as bank vaults and ICBMs have
two keys, so it is prudent to make the entry into magical consciousness
something you are not likely to do on a whim, and the more distinct steps
there are, the more conscious effort is required. Lastly - and it
is an important point - I open the circle with a martial attitude, and
it is useful to have a breathing space to switch out of that mood and into
the mood needed for the invocation. Opening the Gates provides an
opportunity to make that switch.

4.3 Invocation to the Powers
The invocation to the Powers is often an occasion
for some of the most laboured, leaden, pompous, grandiose and turgid prose
ever written or recited. Tutorial books on magic are full of this stuff.
"Oh glorious moon, wreathed in aetherial light...". You know the
stuff. If you are invoking Saturn during a waxing moon you might
be justified in going on like Brezhnev addressing the Praesidium of the
Soviet Communist Party, but as in every other aspect of magic, the trick
isn't what you do, but how you do it, and interminable invocations aren't
the answer. On a practical level, reading a lengthy invocation from
a sheet of paper in dim candlelight requires so much conscious effort that
it is hard to "let go", so I like keep things simple and to the point,
and practice until I can do an invocation without having to think about
it too much, and that leaves room for the more important "consciousness
changing" aspect of the invocation.
An invocation is like a ticket for a train,
and if you can't find the train there isn't much point in having the ticket.
Opening the Gates gets you to the doorstep of magical consciousness, but
it is the invocation which gets you onto the train and propels you to the
right place, and that isn't something which "just happens" unless you have
a natural aptitude for the aspect of consciousness you are invoking.
However, it does happen; people tend to begin their magical work with those
areas of
consciousness where they feel most at home, so they may well have some
initial success. Violent, evil people do violent and
evil conjurations; loving people invoke love - most people begin their
magical work with "a free ticket" to some altered state of
consciousness, but in general, invoking a specific aspect of consciousness
takes practice and I don't expect immediate results
when I invoke something new. If interminable tracts of deathless
prose work for you, then fine, but I find it hard to keep a
straight face when piety and pomposity combine to produce the sort
of invocations to be found in print. I name no names.
I can't give a prescription for entering magical
consciousness. Well devised rituals, practised often, have a way
of shifting consciousness which is surprising and unexpected.
I don't know why this happens; it just does. I suspect the peculiar
character of ritual, the way it involves the senses and occupies mind
and body simultaneously, its numinous and exotic symbolism, the intensity
of preparation and execution, involve dormant parts of the mind, or at
least engage the normal parts in an unusual way. Using ritual to
cause shifts in consciousness is not exceptionally difficult; getting the
results you want, and
avoiding unexpected and undesired side-effects is harder. Ritual
is not a rational procedure. The symbolism of magic is intuitive
and bubbles out of a very deep well; the whole process of ritual effectively
bypasses the rational mind, so expecting the outcome of a ritual to obey
the dictates of reason is completely irrational. The image of a horse
is appropriate: anyone can get
on the back of a wild mustang, but reaching the point where horse and
rider go in the same direction at the same time takes
practice. The process of limitation described in these notes
can't influence the natural waywardness of the animal, but at
least it is a method for ensuring that the horse gets a clear message.

4.4 Statement of Intention and Sacrifice
If magical ritual is not to be regarded as
a form of bizarre entertainment carried out for its own sake, then there
has to be a
reason for doing it - healing, divination, personal development, initiation,
and the like. If it is healing, then it is usually
healing for one specific person, and then again, it is probably not
just healing in general, but healing for some specific
complaint, within some period of time. The statement of intention is
the culmination of a process of limitation which begins when
the Circle is opened, and to return to the analogy of the plastic bag,
the statement of intention is like the blade on the scalpel -
the more precise the intention, the more the energy of the ritual is
concentrated to a single point.
The observation that rituals work better if
their energy is focused by intention is in accord with experience in everyday
life: any change involving other people, no matter how small or insignificant,
tends to meet with opposition. If you want to
change the brand of coffee in the coffee machine, or if you want to
rearrange the furniture in the office, someone will object. If
you want to drive a new road through the countryside, local people
object. If you want to raise taxes, everyone objects. The more people
you involve in a change, the more opposition you encounter, and in magic
the same principle holds, because from a magical point of view the
whole fabric of the universe is held in place by an act of collective intention
involving everything from God downwards. When you perform a ritual you
are setting yourself up against a collective will to keep most things the
way they are, and your ritual will succeed only if certain things are true:

1. you are a being of awesome will.

2. you have allies. The universe
is changing, there is always a potential for change, and if your intention
coincides with
an existing will to bring about that change, your ritual can act as a catalyst.

3. you limit your intention to minimise
opposition; the analogy is the diamond cutter who exploits natural lines
of
cleavage to
split a diamond.

Suppose you want to bring peace to the world.
This is an admirable intention, but the average person would have no more
effect (with or without magic) on the peacefulness of the world than
they would if they attempted to smash Mount Everest with a rubber hammer.
Rather than worry about the peacefulness of the whole world, why not use
your ritual to create a better
relationship with your spouse, or your boss, or someone who really
annoys you? And why not work on the specific issues which are the
main source of friction. And try to improve things within a specified period
of time. And do it in a way which respects the other person's right to
continue being a pain in the arse if they so wish? This is the idea
behind focussing or limiting an intention. Having said all this, there
are a lot of people in the world who would appreciate some peace, and perhaps
your grand intention to bring peace might catch a wave and help a few,
so don't let me put you off, but as a general principle it is
sensible to avoid unnecessary opposition by making the intention as
precise as possible. Think about sources of opposition, and about
ways of circumventing that opposition - there may be a simple way which
avoids making waves, and that is when magic works best. Minimising
opposition also reduces the amount of backlash you can expect - quite often
the simplest path to earth for any intention is through the magician, and
if there is a lot of opposition that is what happens. [The very act
of invoking power creates a resonance and a natural channel through the
magician.]
I try to analyse the possible outcomes and
consequences of my intentions. There is a popular view that "if it harms
none, do
what you will". I can think of many worse moral principles, and
it is better than most, but it is still naive. It pretends that
it is theoretically possible to live without treading on another person's
toes, it leaves me to make unilateral decisions about
what is or is not harmful to others, and it is so wildly unrealistic,
even in the context of everyday life, that it only
seems to make sense if I intend to live in seclusion in a wilderness
living off naturally occuring nuts and berries (having
asked the squirrels for permission). If it is used as a moral
principle in magic, then it draws an artificial distinction
between magical work and the "push me, push you/if it moves, shoot
it, if it doesn't, cut it down" style of contemporary life. It
completely emasculates free-will. I prefer to believe that just
about anything I do is going to have an impact on someone or
something, and there are no cute moral guidelines; there are actions
and there are outcomes. The aim is not to live according
to guidelines, but to understand as fully as possible the consequences
of the things we do, and to decide, in the light of
our understanding (which has hopefully kept pace with our power), whether
we are prepared to live with the outcomes.
And so to sacrifice. There is a problem
here. The problem arises from the perception that in magic you don't get
something
for nothing, and if you want to bring about change through magic you
have to pay for it in some way. So far so good. The question is:
what can you give in return? There is a widespread belief that you
can sacrifice a living creature, and while most magicians (self included)
abhor the idea, the perpetuation of this idea is still being used as a
stick to beat the magical and pagan
community about the head. The issue is further complicated by the fact
that if one looks at surviving shamanistic practices
worldwide, or looks at the origins of most religions, ritual animal
sacrifice is endemic. That doesn't make it right, and I
have an unshakeable prejudice that it isn't an acceptable thing to
do, but I am only too aware of my hypocrisy when I order a chicken curry,
so I'm not going to stand on a soapbox and rant on about it.
What I prefer to do is to examine what the
notion of sacrifice means. What can one legitimately sacrifice?
You can't
legitimately sacrifice anything which is not yours to give, and so
the answer to the question "what can I sacrifice" lies in the
answer to the question "what am I, and what have I got to give?".
You certainly aren't any other living being, and if you don't make the
mistake of identifying yourself with your possessions you will see that
the only sacrifice you can make is yourself, because that is all you have
to give. Every ritual intention requires that you sacrifice some
part of yourself, and if you don't make the sacrifice willingly then either
the ritual will fail, or the price will be exacted anyway. I don't
have a rational justification for this statement, and it certainly isn't
based on "karma" or a paranoid feeling that accountants are everywhere;
the belief was
handed on to me as part of my magical training, and having observed
the way in which "magical energy" is utilised to carry
out intentions, it makes sense. Each person has a certain amount of
what I will call "life energy" at their disposal - some people
call it "personal power", and you can sacrifice some of that energy
to power the ritual. Sacrifice does not mean turning the
knife on yourself (and there are plenty of people who do that).
What it means in ordinary down-to-earth terms is that you promise to do
something in return for your intention, and you link the sacrifice to the
intention in such a way that the sacrifice
focuses energy along the direction of your intention. For example,
my cat was ill and hadn't eaten for three weeks, so, as a last
resort, fearing she was about to die of starvation, I carried out a
ritual to restore her appetite, and as a sacrifice I ate nothing
for 24 hours. I used my (real) hunger to drive the intention,
and she began eating the following day.
Any personal sacrifice which hurts enough
engages a deep impulse to make the hurt go away, and the magician can use
that
impulse to bring about magical change by linking the removal of the
pain to the accomplishment of the intention. And I don't mean magical masochism.
We are (subject to all caveats on generalisations) creatures of habit who
find comfort and security
by living our lives in a particular way, and a change to that habit
and routine causes some discomfort and an opposing desire to
return to the original state: that desire can be used. Just as a ritual
intends to change the world in some way, so a sacrifice
forces us to change ourselves in some way, and that liberates magical
energy. If you want to heal someone, don't just do a
ritual and leave it at that; become involved in caring for them in
some way, and that *active* caring can act as a channel for
whatever power you have invoked. If you want to use magic to help someone
out of a mess, provide them with active, material help as well; conversely,
if you can't be bothered to provide material help, your ritual will be
infected with that same inertia and
apathy - true will, will out, and in many cases our true will is to
flatter the ego and do nothing substantive. I speak from
experience.
From a magical perspective each one of us
is a magical being with a vast potential of power, but that is denied to
us by an
innate, fanatical, and unbelievably deep-rooted desire to keep the
world in a regular orbit serving our own needs. Self- sacrifice disturbs
this equilibrium and lets out some of that energy, and that is why egoless
devotion and self-sacrifice has a reputation for working miracles.

4.5 The Main Ritual
After invoking the Powers and having stated
the intention and sacrifice, there would seem to be nothing more to do,
but most people like to prolong the contact with the Powers and carry out
some kind of symbolic ritual for a period of time varying from minutes
to days. Ritual as I have described it so far may seem like a cut-and-dried
exercise, but it isn't; it is more of an art than a science, and once the
Circle and Gates are opened, and the Powers are "in attendance", whatever
science there is in ritual gives way to art. Magicians operate in
a world where ordinary things have complex symbolic meanings or correspondences,
and they use a selection of consecrated implements or "power objects" in
their work. The magician can use this palette of symbols within a ritual
to paint of picture which signifies an intention in a non-verbal, non-rational
way, and it is this ability to communicate an intention through every sense
of the body, through every level of the mind, which gives ritual its power.
I can't say any more about this because it is personal and unique to every
magician, and each one develops a style which works best for them.

4.6 Dismissal of Powers
Once the ritual is complete the Powers are
thanked and dismissed. This begins the withdrawal of consciousness
back to
its pre-ritual state.

4.7 Close Gates/Close Circle
The final steps are closing the Gates (thus
sealing off the altered state of consciousness) and closing the Circle
(thus
returning to the everyday world). The Circle should not be closed if
there is any suspicion that the withdrawal from the altered
state has not been completed fully. I like to carry out a sanity
check between closing the Gates and closing the Circle. It
sometimes happens that although the magician goes through the steps
of closing down, the attention is not engaged, and the
magician remains in the altered state. This is not a good idea.
The energy of that state will continue to manifest in every
intention in everyday life, and all sorts of unplanned things will
start to happen. A related problem is that every magician will
find sooner or later an altered state which compensates for some of
their perceived inadequacies (in the way that many people like to get drunk
at parties), and they will not want to let go of it because it makes them
feel good, so they come out of the ritual in an altered state without realising
they have failed to close down correctly. This is called obsession,
and it is one of the
interesting difficulties of magical work.
Closing down correctly is important if you
don't want to end up like a badly cracked pot. If you don't feel
happy that the
Powers have been completely dismissed and the Gates closed correctly,
go back and repeat the steps again.

5. Maps & Correspondences

If consciousness is imagined as a space we can move
around in, then it is a space of several dimensions. An indespensible
tool for any magician is a method for describing this space and its dimensions,
a method to specify the "the coordinates of
consciousness", like giving a map reference. The magician uses
such a descriptive method to say "this is where I want to get to", and
you can imagine a ritual as a vehicle which transports him or her to the
destination and back again.
A descriptive method of this type is one of
the most obvious and characteristic features of a particular magical technique,
because states of consciousness are usually described using a dense
mesh of symbolism and metaphor, and if a magical tradition has been around
for any length of time it becomes identified by the details of this symbolism.
Given the tendency for maps to be confused with territory, there is a tendency
for symbolism to take on a life of its own and become completely detached
from authentic magical technique. People confuse magical symbolism
with magic; its use as a coordinate system is lost, vast tomes of drivel
are written, and every manner of absurdity follows.
I am a Kabbalist by training and use a map
of consciousness called "The Tree of Life". This map has been coloured
in using a thousand years of symbolism, and the result is called "the Correspondences",
and it is a system which allows me to navigate
around the dimensions of consciousness with some precision. There are
many other maps, some well worn by history, some not, and my choice is
a matter of personal preference. It works for me because of the kind
of person I am, but it is only a map and I wouldn't pretend that there
was anything intrinsically special about it.
Many magicians operate within a religious
framework. The Christian Mass is a magical ritual par excellence,
and there are
several other magical rituals associated with Christianity. Some
magicians work within a pantheon - Graeco-Roman, Egyptian,
Scandinavian, Aztec or whatever. Some (e.g. Crowley) invent their own
religion. A characteristic of all these systems is that they provide
a complex mesh of symbol and metaphor, a map for the magician to work within.
For any pantheon it is usually
straightforward (with some bending, stretching and hitting with a hammer)
to identify a personification for the following aspects of consciousness:

And once we have gods and goddesses (or saints)
to personify these qualities, a weave of metaphors and associations elaborates
the picture; the Moon is instinct, fire is both destructive and energetic,
death is a sythe, air and mercury are "the same", and so on. The
meaning of a symbol is personal - white means "death" to some and "purity"
to others. What matters is that the magician should have a clear map, and
with it the ability to invoke different aspects of consciousness by using
the symbolism of gods, goddesses, archangels, demons or whatever.
It does not matter whether the magician believes in the literal reality
of the territory or not, as long as he or she treats the map with respect
and does not muddy the water by dabbling with too many different maps.
There are two principal ways in which maps become muddled, and as the main
theme of these notes is the precise use of limitation in conjuction
with magical consciousness, I think it is worth mentioning what I see as
potential pitfalls. The first pitfall is mixing systems; the second
is working with other people.
There is a tendency nowadays to muddle different
systems of correspondences together, to add Egyptian gods to a Kabbalistic
ritual, to say that Tanith is really the same as Artemis, or that Cybele
and Astarte and Demeter are "just" different names for the Mother Goddess,
to find parallels between Thor and Mars, between Kali and Hecate, between
the Virgin Mary and Isis, until, like different colours of paint mixed
together, everything ends up in shades of muddy brown. This unifying
force is everywhere as people find universal themes and try to make links
between groups and systems.
It is (in my opinion) a bad idea to mix systems
together in a spirit of ecumenical fervour. Correspondences are like
intentions: the sharper and more clearly defined they are, the better
they work. Despite a few similarities, the Virgin Mary is
nothing like Isis, and Demeter has very little in common with Astarte.
Syncretism usually takes place slowly over the
centuries, so that for most people there is no distinction between
the classical Greek and Roman pantheons and Mercury is a synonym for Hermes,
but to do it in real-time in your own head is a recipe for muddle-headedness.
Symbols can be diffused when people work together
in a group. It is a mistake to believe that "power" is raised in
direct
proportion to the number of people taking part in a ritual. Unless
people have been trained together and have similar "maps", then the ritual
will have a different effect on each person, and although more power may
be raised, it will be unfocussed and will probably earth itself through
unexpected channels. When people begin working together there will
be a period of time when their work together will probably be less effective
than any one of them working alone, but after a time their "maps" begin
to converge and things start to improve dramatically. There is nothing
magical about this - it is a phenomenon of teams of people in general.
I don't like "spectator rituals" for this reason; you are either in it
or your are out, and if you are out, you are out the door.
Does it matter what map, what system of correspendences
a person uses? Is there a "best" set? This is an impossible
question to answer. What can be said is that working within any
magical framework incurs a cost. The more effective a magical system
is at limiting, engaging and mobilising the creative power of consciousness,
the more effective it is at ensnaring
consciousness within its own assumptions and limitations. If
a person works within a belief system where the ultimate nature of
God is pure, unbounded love, joy and bliss, then that closes off other
possibilities.
Without sitting in judgement of any set of
beliefs, I would say that the best belief system and the best system of
correspondences is one which allows consciousness to roam over the
greatest range of possibilities, and permits it the free-will to choose
its own limitations. And that is a belief in itself.

6. Conclusion

The gist of these notes is that ritual is a technique
for focussing magical power through the deliberate use of limitation.
Limitation comes from the belief system of the magician, and the set
of correspondences used to create symbolism within the ritual. Further
limitation comes from the structure of the ritual itself, and ultimately
from the statement of intention. With practise these elements add
up to a single-mindedness which can shift consciousness out of its normal
orbit.